Just before the guards got to him, Aleks put his hand in his pocket, found his phone and squeezed the button he hoped was SEND.
‘Because of Gardner? Why?’ Sally said, grasping Novitskiy by the lapels.
Novitskiy pulled himself free and moved away from her. ‘Maybe you should ask him,’ he said. ‘It’s his fault, not mine.’
A scuffle from the MLM entrance made them both look up to see Chris making his way towards them. He was out of breath. ‘Guys, come quick. You need to see this.’
Without another word, he flipped around and shot back out again. Novitskiy followed, and Sally after him. She tried to keep up with them as they darted from module to module, but at this speed she kept crashing into things as she misjudged her trajectory. She kept close enough to see Chris and Novitskiy disappear left into Node Three, where the Cupola was. She had been in there once before: it was a viewing module that bulged downwards and had the best view of Earth on the station. She tumbled in to find all three of the others looking out in the same direction.
‘What is it?’ she said, scrambling over to look. Through one of the Cupola’s many windows, she could see what looked like a metal can with a ball at one end and squared off wings at the other.
‘It’s TMA Ten M,’ Gardner said. ‘It’s the Soyuz capsule that Romanenko took.’
It drifted on a path that seemed to be taking it close by them.
‘Mikhail…’ Novitskiy whispered.
Both hope and horror stirred inside Sally at once. She tried to dismiss the thought that TMA Ten M had become a floating coffin. ‘Can we use it for spares?’
‘We can do better than that,’ Gardner said, staring out at the spacecraft. ‘We can use it to go back home straight away.’
‘If it’s in good condition we just need to fuel up and we’re out of here,’ Chris said.
They all looked at it in dreamy silence.
‘So how do we get it?’ Sally said, her voice sounding loud after the quiet.
‘We’ll have to do an EVA,’ said Gardner. ‘The robotic arm won’t reach. Two of us in EMU suits should have enough thrust to dock it. At a rough guess, it looks like it’ll pass by in about an hour, so we need to move fast.’
Sally and Novitskiy stayed in the Cupola as Chris and Gardner left to suit up. Soyuz seemed to be moving quicker than Sally had first thought, and she wasn’t sure they even had an hour. ‘How long does it take to get outside?’ she asked.
‘About half an hour at a rush. It’s very risky doing it so quickly, but they’ve done it many times. They should be okay with the buddy system checks.’
Now Sally was alone again with Novitskiy, she couldn’t help but ask the question burning in her mind. ‘Why is it Gardner’s fault that NASA aren’t coming for us?’
Novitskiy made a noise in his throat. ‘NASA don’t send astronauts like him. Not unless — well, lets just say his being here is a bad omen.’
‘You’re talking about TMA Eight, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Were you on it?’
‘Yes. We were lucky to get out alive.’
‘This is a suicide mission, isn’t it?’
Novitskiy was staring out at Soyuz, the Earthlight soft on his face. ‘It’s called forlorn hope. When they send someone like Gardner, it’s because they don’t expect them to come back.’
Sally looked at Soyuz with him. Its foil shell and paper-thin solar wings made it look so delicate she could crush it between her thumb and forefinger. ‘Do you think he’s still alive in there?’
Novitskiy didn’t answer.
Soyuz had drawn level with the station when two white figures came into view. Their gleaming gold visors twinkled as they directed their bulky EMU jetpacks towards the craft. They negotiated a path that intercepted the vehicle, and as it passed by the Cupola, they used their EMUs to steer it towards the MRM Two docking module. Working together, they pivoted the vehicle onto its end, slowing it as it drew level with MRM Two. Watching the slow, graceful manoeuvre was mesmerising, every gentle change of speed and direction fluid and controlled, every metre closer causing Sally’s chest to flutter with anticipation. The journey home was within their grasp. ‘Come on…’ she whispered.
With the nose of Soyuz in line with MRM Two, all they needed for a safe docking was a straight line. Sure enough, the two white-suited men directed Soyuz’s guide probe into the mating adaptor, where it locked in and came to a rest.
‘Ha haaaa!’ Novitskiy cried out, and Sally hugged him, charged with excitement. Novitskiy pushed her away, and she looked at him, hurt, only to see that his face had become pale. Fearing the worst, she looked back out the Cupola window where one of the astronauts was grasping at his helmet, writhing and spinning out of control away from the station. The other, on the opposite side of Soyuz, hadn’t seen, and was making his way back to the station in the opposite direction.
‘Follow me!’ Novitskiy yelled, and Sally sprang after him, paddling as hard as she could to chase him down the station. She reached Harmony where her sleeping quarters were; just beyond, Novitskiy had stopped, pulling at Velcro tabs holding a sheet of wall panel to the module’s frame.
‘Help me pull this off,’ he said, but Sally was already on it, peeling the sheet away to reveal the bronze head and white body of the R Two GM robotic astronaut. ‘Grab an arm and lift.’ Sally did as she was told. Together they hoisted the strange, legless figure from its cradle. They headed back towards the Cupola with it, turning into the opposite module, Quest, where Sally and Gardner had first entered the station. The room seemed bigger, as the two space suits were missing. Novitskiy opened the inner airlock and they fed the robot in, shutting the door behind it.
‘I’ll pilot the R Two from Harmony. You go back to the Cupola. Come and tell me if you see anything I need to know about.’
‘Okay,’ she said, nodding, and they left Quest, Novitskiy turning right into Harmony and Sally heading straight on over to the Cupola. It took her a moment to locate the drifting astronaut: he had travelled a long way already, and when she found him her stomach lurched. He was no longer thrashing — he was still. The other astronaut had seen and was heading straight for him, but Sally could tell that the distance between them was too great to catch up. From the right, the bronze headed R Two robot darted into view, moving with a speed the EMUs couldn’t hope to match. It caught up with the drifting body, slowing him down and guiding him back towards the station. The other astronaut met them on the way back, and with a wave of relief washing through her, Sally watched as man and machine towed the limp body to safety. She rushed across to Quest and waited as the warning light for the outer airlock door clicked on and then off again. There was a muted rushing of air, then silence.
‘We have to wait a few minutes before they can come in,’ Novitskiy said, drifting in behind her. ‘But they’ll be here soon.’
Sally remembered her own experience of coming in through the airlock, the relief of sharing the station’s life support after her journey on the outside. The red inner airlock light glowed deep, and she swapped between staring at it, then the airlock door, then it again every few seconds. It took her brain a moment to catch up when it did switch off, and everything sank back into clarity as Novitskiy rushed to the door to help Chris — helmet already removed — tow Gardner’s floating, lifeless body in. His helmet was off too, and Sally let out a tiny gasp as she saw the look on his face. It was part surprise, part — no, that couldn’t be right. But the more she stared, the more she realised she was right, that the expression frozen on Gardner’s face was one of elation.